American Empire series

zoomar · Mar 17, 2004

aktarian said:
Grey Wolf, you might want to skip this post as there are many spoilers

I was hoping that fanatical christian in GW would live. He would be interesting had he stayed in the army. I could see him becoming at least a colonel. OK, it was war and people had to die. But why keep least interesting characters and kill off good ones?

I don't even remember him. The only vaguely relgious character I remember was that toady Fr Pascal in Quebec. There were also the Mormons, also, I guess. Actually, I'd have actually liked to see other explicitly religious characters (priests, ministers, rabbis, etc) as that's one aspect of North American social/cultural alternate history Turtledove did not explore as much as he could have.

aktarian · Mar 17, 2004

zoomar said:
I don't even remember him. The only vaguely relgious character I remember was that toady Fr Pascal in Quebec. There were also the Mormons, also, I guess. Actually, I'd have actually liked to see other explicitly religious characters (priests, ministers, rabbis, etc) as that's one aspect of North American social/cultural alternate history Turtledove did not explore as much as he could have.

Mcgregor or something. He gets medal for destroying CSA tank with flamethrower (end of second book IIRC) and another for destroying river ironclad. He was always reminding troops around him not to curse and generally wasn't shy about leting his religious preferences known.

He dies when shell explodes near him close to end of war. He fought with that Greek guy who also died, but Greek dies sooner.

Archangel Michael · Mar 17, 2004

I thought McGregor was the Canadian who made the bombs, and then got blown up by one of his own. oh, the irony.

aktarian · Mar 17, 2004

Gordon McSweeney, sorry.

Archangel Michael · Mar 17, 2004

zoomar said:
at least put some in England, France, Germany so we get a more interesting global perspective.

I agree. That's one of the many problems I discovered early on about HT's series.

Trotsky · Mar 17, 2004

Yeah, I was hoping that we'd see Anne Colleton in action dealing with the Action Francaise in AE:TVO, but no. Maybe she'll get posted elsewhere as the war progresses.

aktarian · Mar 18, 2004

Mikey said:
I agree. That's one of the many problems I discovered early on about HT's series.

Worldwar/Colonisation covers this quite well.

zoomar · Mar 19, 2004

aktarian said:
Gordon McSweeney, sorry.

McGregor, McSweeney. Point made, way too many characters that we can't keep straight, neither of which mattered one iota to the overall narrative. If I were Turtledove, I'd have made the entire GW, AE series focus on the POV of 1-2 main characters (either a big cheese like Featherston or a truly interesting minor guy like Scipio.

aktarian · Mar 19, 2004

zoomar said:
McGregor, McSweeney. Point made, way too many characters that we can't keep straight, neither of which mattered one iota to the overall narrative. If I were Turtledove, I'd have made the entire GW, AE series focus on the POV of 1-2 main characters (either a big cheese like Featherston or a truly interesting minor guy like Scipio.

McGregors are there to show life in occupied English speaking Canada. Galtirs were there to show life in French speaking Quebec. Both are characters that have place. Nellie and Slyvia don't, specially in AE, GW was different.

I liked McSweeney because he was interesting character. OK, there were so amny characters in GW that showed basically same viewpoint that some had to go. But personally I'd rather have McSweeney then Martin in AE.

Trotsky · Mar 19, 2004

aktarian said:
McGregors are there to show life in occupied English speaking Canada. Galtirs were there to show life in French speaking Quebec. Both are characters that have place. Nellie and Slyvia don't, specially in AE, GW was different.

I liked McSweeney because he was interesting character. OK, there were so amny characters in GW that showed basically same viewpoint that some had to go. But personally I'd rather have McSweeney then Martin in AE.

Me thinks that . . .

Martin is supposed to show the labor trouble that happened in OTL depression. McSweeny. . . . is a religious nut who enjoys war because it is his "appointed role in life." I really liked his character, but he didn't have much purpose past 1917, like Nellie, Ramsay, and Mantarakis.

We need a Schlieffen-type character (instead of a European here as in How Few Remains, we need an American/Confederate Over There) to report on progress overseas, but not a worldwide spectrum like in WW/Colonization.

And personally, I think that President Smith should step down and a tough guy to take his spot, so we can have an SOB vs SOB war, like Hitler vs. Stalin.

David Howery · Mar 21, 2004

hey, Smith is a socialist, which automatically makes him an SOB

I suppose he's the counterpart to Stalin....

Thyme · Mar 22, 2004

I don't think there were too many characters. Almost all of them had something to add to understanding the situation. I would have liked to have seen a couple of characters involved in the European theater. Maybe that would have worked well as a separate book, sort of a fourth companion volume for each trilogy, that comes out after/at the same time as the third book. I'd buy them.

David Howery · Mar 22, 2004

Too many characters? Does this mean you guys have never read "The Longest Day" or any of Cornelius Ryan's other books as well? Lots of characters there too....

Trotsky · Mar 22, 2004

Lots of interesting characters are a plus, but then each of their parts would have to be shortened, or else the book expanded. I liked the layout in the Worldwar books, when characters came out and left as necessary to key parts of the plot, and not having to wait a hundred pages for their next segment.

Maybe George Enos Jr will, instead of joining the Navy, join the Marines and participate in raids in Europe or something. Just a thought for all the talk about having characters in Europe.

HT should write a history-book on his timeline, starting with Secession in 1861 and covering every key part of world history, with emphasis on North America of course, until the end of the Second Great War, ala that one guy who wrote 'For Want of a Nail'. That would be killer.

Trotsky · Mar 22, 2004

Or, instead of hoping Turtledove writes it, maybe someone out there on the internet will write his own history of the USA/CSA timeline, and create his own educated guesses as to what happened in the rest of the world.

zoomar · Mar 23, 2004

David Howery said:
Too many characters? Does this mean you guys have never read "The Longest Day" or any of Cornelius Ryan's other books as well? Lots of characters there too....

Yeah, but those works (as well as John Toland's stuff) are narrative popular history. Turtledove is writing fiction, and not in in a style emulating popular non-fiction. Maybe he should have.

Raymann · Mar 24, 2004

Yeah I liked McSweeney. Insteed of socialists party, he should have had a religious right party. The flamethower was awsome. Anyway I don't know about ya'll but I found the Southern characters MUCH more intresting. I mean the Driver family, whats his name in charge of the prisoner soon-to-be-concentration camp, Anne, and of course the Hitler wannabe (ditto on the Mexican though). Who cares about a fisherman's wife or a coffee shop owner? We want people involved in serious political/social change not some irrevelent slice of society.

I also think some of the miliray matters would have been calmed down by now. Utah shouldn't still be occupied. Western Canada at least should be well on their way to becoming states and the East shouldn't still need significant military occupation except to deal with the occasional terrorist incident.

Besides all of its faults though, I'm still eager to read the next book. If you are going to write a lot of irrevelent info, at least do what Turtledove does and write enough books to cover all the good stuff.

Grey Wolf · Apr 6, 2004

Yay, I've finished it !!!

Actually the last third was a great improvement on the rest of the book, but then again that was where the plot finally woke up and you felt there was some point to most of what you were reading - most of it anyway, I couldn't see the point to the pages on Lucien's death except that I guess Turtledove just wanted to give a good character a deserving send off, but I have to admit I skim-read them (and even in this book I rarely did that). The ending with the Featherston-Potter interplay was done very nicely though the last couple of paragraphs seemed to lack quite the dramatic edge I was hoping.

Grey Wolf

zoomar · Apr 6, 2004

Grey Wolf said:
Yay, I've finished it !!!

Actually the last third was a great improvement on the rest of the book, but then again that was where the plot finally woke up and you felt there was some point to most of what you were reading - most of it anyway, I couldn't see the point to the pages on Lucien's death except that I guess Turtledove just wanted to give a good character a deserving send off, but I have to admit I skim-read them (and even in this book I rarely did that). The ending with the Featherston-Potter interplay was done very nicely though the last couple of paragraphs seemed to lack quite the dramatic edge I was hoping.

Grey Wolf

I agree, GW, the whole thing got a lot better after the surprising assasination attempt on Featherston. The change in Potter from anti-Featherston radical to inadvertent Featherston-supporting hero, and how the two of them used each other to gain additional power was a surprise and high-point of the whole book. Unlike most of the other characters just plodding along doing exactly what you'd expect them to do.